One of my deep beliefs is that we have everything we need. It is inside us, around us, in our closets and in our hearts.
So this past year, lovely souls from across the country reached out to me to teach. "Was I ever in their area?" Not yet. Not this year.
After looking at beautiful places to teach in California last minute, I decided to open up my cottage studio for a long fall weekend in October. I create in one of the most magical spaces around; in my little cottage studio in the middle of 237 acres on a historic farm. And Bucks County, Pennsylvania is magical all on its own.
The weekend was just right. A group of beautiful women came. Can't you feel all the love in this little Continue Reading »

It is Friday, which starts with me on my yoga mat at 7:30am. I am two cups of coffee in, Rufus Wainwright radio is playing softly in my home studio. I am getting ready to send an email out about my holiday events this month which means updating my event page first.
I often feel like my business is this vintage red wagon filled with positivity and good energy and I am gently pulling it up a hill with wildflowers growing alongside me and butterflies and birds all around. Glorious, but it still is uphill at times and I am pulling this sweet wagon.
Which is why yoga is so important. Time to simply step out of my head and into my heart and body. I just have show up as I am on the mat, often in what I wore Continue Reading »

Happy Sunday morning. I am hoping yours looks a bit like this. Oh to be a very loved chihuahua.
Just checking in here to send a hug out and share a bit. I do a good bit of sharing on social media and in email blasts and such, but I love sitting here and sharing where I am emotionally. Kind of like stitching a thread that connects me to you.
Let's start with a business update.
The card line is growing. 110 cards and 83 stores and counting. And there are so many possibilities and partnership opportunities ahead. Thank goodness patience is one of my best qualities. I am really clear on how I want to grow and be as a company, so I make each decision carefully. Sometimes I say no to opportunities that look really good Continue Reading »

4:40 am. I am wide awake.
So I quietly slipped out of bed and made some coffee and now here I sit. Wide awake with you. And thinking about this past year and this new year.
It is cold and dark outside. I have a little heater in my office studio. I am wearing a sweater with a fake fur collar that is like a coat.
But there was a day last summer that was really glorious and the sun was shining. I was on the farm outside my cottage studio. I was with an amazing photographer, some white wine, music, cheese and bits of watermelon.
This was a birthday present to myself 6 months later. A photo shoot to update my pictures for my website. I wanted to be seen exactly as I was at 50. And by June, I had felt I had arrived at this sweet Continue Reading »

Goodness.
That is the word I find myself using and thinking about a lot lately. The leaves are falling on me like blankets this season. I am surrounded with beauty and color and I am joyous. Seriously happy in a way that is so deep and pure.
I have so much tell you. Little tiny strings of joy to share with you. Settle in for a few minutes with me. Sit close.
I have made a few changes this fall. One of them is daily studio time. And this puts me smack in the middle of a beautiful historic farm almost every day on the east coast in one of the prettiest falls I have ever witnessed. I took this picture leaving my studio this week. Sunshine and shadows.
Like life. Full of contrast that helps us see the true beauty. I am Continue Reading »

When I look back at teaching Hour of Gold at Squam this September, I will remember the light in those New Hampshire woods.
The light from the water that danced on our cabin walls each morning.
The light that was on each night in the library where I set up my class and studio as these women continued to alter the pages of their books.
The light in each of my students as they let my words in and then pulled out their own
stories.
And the light in me. I felt as if it had taken every one of my 50 years to stand before these amazing women and share my journey that is on these pages.
We start here.
Tables filled with materials to inspire that are set up like an art feast.
Individual bags full of ephemera, bits Continue Reading »

Year three on a mission trip with my 17-year-old daughter. And 24 other teens. And eight adults I have grown to know and love.
Three years ago, was our first mission trip to Freeport, Grand Bahamas. On the way to the airport early that morning, I cried. I was with a very angry 15-year-old and a bunch of people who knew each other other. I felt so vulnerable.
That was year one. It was amazing. We went back again. Year two. It was so good.
And again, we returned home better versions of ourselves. Transformed by simplicity, sweat, prayer and truth.
This year all of my God-given talents aligned with imagination, found materials and this group of people I was with. I looked at an old, rusty boxspring, broken glass and trash and Continue Reading »

Time gets away from me. And I have so much to share with you.
I want to tell you about the National Stationery Show and how good it felt to be there. To show up again.
And I want to share about Squam Art Workshops. About all the magic. And that each time I am there the magic is a little different, but what I need to see and feel at that moment.
Both of theses experiences need to be separate because they are so rich. So I will come back to them.
The other day I wanted to catch up with an amazing store in Kansas City who carries my work. So I looked at their blog. And I felt like I had just had coffee with them.
I wanted you to feel like that if you checked in here; as if we had just shared a cup of coffee. So here are some Continue Reading »

The National Stationery Show is a little less than a month away and I have been in a sea of paper. And I love every second of it. Creating. Sewing. Designing. Thinking and then rethinking.
Lately, my creative process takes place on my kitchen table more than in my studio. I need to scan, print and play in photoshop and my cozy little studio has no technology except a coffee maker and a sewing machine. But it is stocked with every kind of paste, gel, stamp and paint you can think of. So I have been making a big beautiful mess at home. Close to my Mac.
This is my kitchen table on most days these past few weeks.
At dinner time, I put it all in neat little piles and move it to the left side of our vintage formica table (a Continue Reading »

This past week I had some things to do that were hard for me. So I did them. And I will do them again.
But here is what I want to tell you.
The day before the hard stuff, I made time for yoga. And for church. I stocked my house with food. I took a warm bath. I was calm and quiet.
The night before, I picked my clothes out. And then I fell asleep easily and deeply. I did wake up a few times in the night and I heard a voice softly say "you so have this."
And it said it over and over again.
Maybe it was my mother whispering to me as I slept. A sweet thought as she is with me always.
But I think it was me, soothing myself. All the positivity that I am surrounded with daily in my art and salvaged words was coming out and Continue Reading »